


An Army for One Man

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Episode: s09e22 Stairway to Heaven, Explosives, FBI Agent Dean, FBI Agent Dean Winchester, Gen, Guilty Castiel, Human Castiel, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Loyalty, M/M, Military Castiel, Paramilitary, Spoilers, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:50:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3228146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel gets the news that some of his people are responsible for an act of domestic terrorism, and that they are claiming it on behalf of him.</p><p>Dean was FBI, sent to infiltrate Castiel's group, until he met the man and fell for him and his cause. Now he's standing beside him through the worst disaster of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Army for One Man

When the news stories came flooding in, Hannah had begun quietly giving orders, sending their best people to investigate, and everyone else to begin packing equipment and supplies. Castiel heard fragments of words, and pieced together numbly that Hannah feared their headquarters may have been compromised, that they should move operations to a new safe house. The others probably talked amongst themselves, but they bustled around without daring to touch their fearless leader, even with their worry.

Castiel stared with blank expression at the television reporting on the scene. He could still hear the explosions ringing in his ears, as if he had been there himself.

Very slowly, it began to dawn on him that no one was going to believe that this attack, this massacre, had not been carried out on his orders.

He stumbled back a step, and Hannah's strong arm was suddenly there, pulling him to the small room he had used as his office. She deposited him unceremoniously, but not unkindly, into his seat, his throne from which decrees had come.

"Castiel," she said in a low but firm voice. "Castiel, they are trying not to ask questions, trying to be faithful and respectful. But they need to be told something."

His blue eyes sought hers finally. "And what would you have me tell them? That I have no idea?"

She pursed her lips, then nodded curtly. "If that's the truth, I suppose they should hear it."

His head was pounding. He had felt nothing physical in the past twenty minutes, but now, every part of his body worked in concert to remind him mockingly just how mortal he was. The great Castiel, the high and mighty leader of Acts of Angels, was, after all, only human.

"Bring me Dean Winchester," the man whispered hoarsely.

"Castiel-"

"Now, please, Hannah."

She ducked her head and backed out of the room.

Castiel sighed. He appreciated Hannah. Like him, she had been in a real military for a number of years. They had not known one another at the time, but they had shared a common disillusionment with the establishment. Over the past six years, they had built a small army of their own.

Their first operations had dealt with the BigGersons scandal. A chemist had sent information to a blogger, who had relayed it to Castiel’s network. The chemist worked within the BigGersons labs, and when he realized the nature of the task his team had been given, he had smuggled the information to the blogger who went only by CharlieBQueen. When Castiel got hold of it, he had sent it to his research team, who had taken it apart and investigated the authenticity of the claim. Once he was certain, he had given Hannah clearance to expose the corporation with a social media campaign and live protests which were so well-organized and with methods so above reproach, friendly media had referred to them as acts of angels, looking out for the public. Acts of Angels had grown an international following after revealing the chain’s attempts to sneak potent and dangerous additives into their food. As if the trifecta of salt, sugar and fat weren’t enough for the industry, now they were trying to hide trace amounts of blatant additives, and the regulating agencies either were unaware or unimpressed, since they had done nothing to prevent it.

Castiel’s network was still underground, although it utilized plenty of above the board resources. There were two types of operations, and they combined resources whenever necessary. The first was the investigative team, working to find and expose evil workings inside large corporations or reveal hypocrites among politicians. Information was gathered until the moment when his army received the nod from their leader, and then they struck, going from silence to media frenzy, hitting every social media outlet, the blogosphere, releasing videos explaining the meticulous fact-checking that went into the attack. They could not afford to be wrong. What they exposed had to be accurate. Castiel would not stand for even an ounce of incorrect information being put out there which traced back to them. Their actions, their attacks, had consequences which reached far beyond the guilty. He had to be convinced that the information was just and beyond reproach.

Then Hannah’s team implemented it all with breathtaking efficiency. Hannah missed nothing, and every tentacle reached its mark within the same hour, causing an upheaval and chaos on the part of the target. When there was no warning, and every media outlet had been flooded with the truth all at once, there was no way to even begin damage control. The last step of every attack ended the same way, with Castiel’s video. From underneath a dark hoodie which hid his trademark blue eyes, Castiel’s voice calmly reported the facts surrounding the case. He gave as much information as he possibly could without putting any of his contacts in danger, and he challenged listeners to do their own research, and to listen to all sides with an open mind. Every video had the same formula. Castiel spoke from inside shadows, eyes covered by his hood, explaining the accusation and then defending the claim, and lastly, calling for productive debate moving forward. “Without truth, free will is an illusion. Demand the truth. It is your right. We will continue to seek and expose the truth.” Those words always signaled the end of the video, and it was immediately sent out to the masses. Bloggers like CharlieBQueen picked it up and passed it along immediately, and within minutes, it and all the other information was floating across the world, creating chatter and bringing power down to its knees.

The second side of operations was quite different. There were some places in the world where even the truth could not always triumph, and even exposing injustices effectively did nothing to stop them. In those places, he had a special team of radical, devoted angels, who had completed guerrilla operations against true evil. In the past three years, they had recruited and trained like-minded leaders in other places, to put an end to situations like child kidnapping rings and sex slavery enterprises. At Castiel’s insistence, these places were only to be attacked by force if peaceful means had been attempted and failed, and that none of the victims were harmed. He also demanded that there be a plan in place well in advance for the long-term treatment and care for the victims. Lastly, there was to be an avoidance of death whenever possible. Destruction of property bothered him far less, and explosives had been utilized on a number of operations. Hannah’s counterpart in this department, his “left hand man” as was often joked, Oren released the videos in the same formula as Castiel, except that they ended with a different statement. “Freedom for the weak is infinitely more important than profit and power of those who would exploit them. Freedom is a human right. We will continue to fight for those who cannot.”

Castiel supported operations such as these. He made sure they received money to care for rescued victims in a responsible way. The last thing he wanted was to leave behind a vacuum of power which would swallow the victims back up. He oversaw the operations from start to finish, and for him, it was never truly finished. He was still receiving reports on operations which had closed from active status three years prior. Castiel cared, deeply, about those affected, and he agonized over information before approving an operation, knowing that on one hand, if he chose not to devote resources to it, he would spend the rest of his life wondering about faceless, nameless victims he chose not to save. On the other hand, if he approved the mission, he would spend his life giving part of his heart to every face and name he got to know and feel responsible for.

And now, he could see everything he had worked and lived for in the flames of the building some bystander had caught exploding.

The door opened, but Castiel was busy staring at his hands. The numbness was beginning to wear off, but he still felt as though everything were developing in slow motion.

A large, disgruntled man was pushed into the room.

“Thank you, Josiah. I need you now to go see what you can find out about…all of this. If it truly was Constantine and Tessa…I need to know, Josiah. Hannah will give you whatever you need.”

The man nodded his head and slipped out of the office quickly.

Dean Winchester looked down at him with a curiosity which trumped his irritation. “What’s going on?”

Castiel gestured to the empty chair with a slow, weary movement.

The man sat, but he watched Castiel’s face without blinking. “So? What’s happening?”

“There has been an attack on Richard Roman Enterprises.”

Dean nodded. “Okay. What’d they do?”

“Something about political donations buying approval for their questionable, but profitable pharmaceuticals.”

A deep frown reached all the way into the green eyes. “I don’t understand. Something about? Are you telling me you don’t know this operation inside and out? Isn’t that kind of your thing? You’re a control freak, and no attack can be implemented without your approval. Isn't that right?”

The slow bobbing of Castiel’s head told the story.

The former FBI agent took in a deep breath. “You didn’t know about this one.”

“No. It was an offensive that lacked the evidence I would need to approve. We needed something stronger than suspicion.”

“So you got rogues out there.”

“It would seem.”

Dean licked his lips carefully. “Cas, what did they do?”

He was ill suddenly. Seeing it was bad enough. Explaining it was far worse. “Explosives,” he breathed.

The green eyes flashed with horror. “Explosives! On domestic soil? What the hell were your guys thinking?”

“They took out an entire distribution warehouse.”

“Oh my god. Cas, what time did they do this?”

The blue eyes squeezed shut, pain streaking his face. “Not an hour ago.”

His friend’s mouth dropped open. “Jesus…”

“The current estimate is three dozen injured, and fifteen possibly dead.”

“Shit.”

“A video was released, claiming responsibility. It is poor quality, but it appears to be one of ours, a man whose codename has been Constantine, and the one working the camera speaks at one point, and we think it is his wife Tessa. He has claimed responsibility on behalf of…” He could not bring himself to speak the words.

“On behalf of you.”

He closed his eyes again and nodded. “I do this for Castiel, leader of the angels, and greatest defender of truth and free will.”

There was silence for a moment, then Dean cleared his throat. “Okay. Call the play.”

The blue gaze flicked toward him again. “I need to know if it truly was Constantine and Tessa. I’ve got my best people on it.” He sighed. “Constantine and Tessa were my best people.” He shook himself. “But I’m letting Hannah field the network right now. We deny any and all involvement. While accusations of wrongdoing on the part of Dick Roman may in fact have truth to them, we do not claim to know anything one way or another, and we would never send angels to kill innocent people.”

“Do you think they’ll believe it?”

They. The media, the bloggers who had supported their vigilantism? The rest of the world watching? The victims and their families? Castiel’s own people? “I don’t know what they’ll believe. I don’t know what to believe myself.”

“Okay. How do I help?”

“They’ve found Tessa. Gadreel has already texted me to say he is about to bring her in. Then…”

Dean understood now why he had been summoned. He gave his friend a severe frown. "You want me to be the one to interrogate her."

"We have to know what happened before we release her to the authorities. None of my people, not even Hannah or Oren or me, have been trained the way you have."

The large man was clenching his teeth.

Castiel stood and stepped around the desk to put his hands on the man's shoulders, then let them drift up to his face. "Dean, if there were another way, I would do it. Maybe she will come in and confess everything, but if Constantine is out there somewhere, she won't give him up easily. Unless we can find him, she will protect him fiercely. I have to know if there are others, if there are more attacks planned, if any other angels are involved. I have to know, Dean. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't need to."

The former company man leaned into Castiel's touch. "I'll get what you need," he promised.

Castiel lowered himself to sit on his heels beside him. "Dean, you know...I would never order a strike like this. You know that. Right?"

"Cas, I left the government that sent me to infiltrate you, because I believe so much in what you do. I believe in your heart, Cas. I lie next to you at night; no one else knows how you suffer through every decision you make. No one else knows how your heart breaks for every person you can't save and every injustice you can't expose. You probably had Dick Roman in your sights for a long time, but you didn't move on him. You wouldn't do it like this."

"Thank you." It was a breathless voice, full of emotion. "I couldn't live knowing you had any doubt. I would never put innocent people in danger. As it is, their blood is on my hands, their deaths on me. I trained Constantine and recruited Tessa. They met because of their work with me. Somehow I failed them, and now they've used what I've built to destroy lives in my name." Tears burned his eyes badly, but he blinked at them angrily. "When Gadreel arrives with Tessa, take her to the kitchen on the second floor. Do whatever you need to. Find out if there is more."

Dean nodded, and stood. He hesitated for a moment before exiting. "You know your buddies still don't trust me."

"You infiltrated us under orders from the federal government. You let yourself be recruited and you let yourself be trained, all the while collecting evidence to prosecute us. Anyone not sleeping with you is going to have trouble trusting you."

"And you?"

Castiel kissed him with tenderness he had once thought himself incapable of. "I have seen every part of your body and soul, and it's good. When I brought you into my bed, Hannah and the others objected. Strongly. I nearly lost everything. I nearly gave up an army of angels for one man. You tell me if I trust you."

"I love you, Cas. I'm glad you ultimately didn't have to lose everything you worked for because of me."

He smiled wearily. "Not because of you. But when this day comes to an end, I may see it all crumble down anyway. I've lost everything."

Dean touched his face with both hands, kissing him again. "Not everything, Castiel. Never everything."

Somehow, the faith of this one righteous man was enough to fill him with strength again. As long as Dean was beside him, he would be able to do what needed to be done.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, I don't condone violence of any sort. But the idea came to me as I kept thinking of the suicide detonating angels, and the fact that Castiel could not bring himself to kill Dean. An army for one man.
> 
> Comments appreciated!!


End file.
